Readers' Survey 2006: Best Blog for Educators

The wild world of blogging may be a hot topic for techno-pundits and media mavens from here to Palo Alto, but the online musings of the blogosphere have barely made a dent in the consciousness of many teachers. A staggering 58 percent of respondents said they don't read blogs, either because they don't have the time or don't know what one is in the first place. But for those who do, Will Richardson's thoughtful Weblogg-ed and David Warlick's entertaining site (www.davidwarlick.com/2cents) are must-reads. Strangely, though blogs are still foreign soil to many surveyed, other respondents consider them one of the best ways to stay in the know.

Our Take

The RSS Feed

For those -- and there seem to be many -- who fear or loathe the blog, and for those who like them but barely have time to read them, we would like to introduce the RSS feed. Sounds fancy, but the acronym stands for "Really Simple Syndication." Key word? "Simple." It's a technology for Web site publishers to let people know when new content is available, which means you don't have to browse, because the newest information on your favorite blogs will come to you. How? Web sites generally combine a title, an annotation, and a URL for each new article, which is then published as a feed. Feeds allow readers to quickly skim over new material.

The real benefit of RSS is that users can use special browsers to aggregate many feeds in one place, which is very helpful when you're trying to keep track of many online sources of information.

I teach high school scoence and have recently entered the blogosphere. As a teacher I rarely have time during the school day to keep up with the many resources of information about topics in science. Teaching a current events in science course makes this required for me. I have recently learned about RSS feeds which monitor all the blogs I like to read and lets me know when they are updated - so convenient. Now I do not have t osurf over to the bolgs unless and until I have the time

I am a graduate student and have been forever. Recently, we have have been studying brain research and its relationship to education. I found certain information was well known to the average educator such as concrete experiences create the strongest impressions in the learning environment. What I discovered were dispelled myths such as the brain does not work in separate hemispheres but that the two work together. As I think of pictures of brain activity that I have seen from PET scans or MRIs, probably from television, I recall that the brain lights up on both hemispheres. What they now know about the brain is that learning experiences reorganize the brain's physiology and structure. The brain one is born with is not necessarily the one which we are stuck, so says the article. What I have read says studies show structural changes in different parts of the brain in relation to how the structures were used. Fascinating! It speaks to how impressionable children truly are.

You might be interested in these articles: "MRI Scans Support Multiple-Intelligences Theory" (brain imagery shows that human abilities come in many combinations), which is part of our multiple intelligences package, and "From Brain-Based Research to Powerful Learning: Innovative Teaching Techniques in the Classroom."